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The wild strawberries are ripe. Little splashes of red winking at us as Jasmine and I wandered on our walk today.

I used to pick wild strawberries and make jam. It took hours to pick enough to make even a few jars of jam and it was a labour of love for Mark who appreciated the effort and loved the jam. There was time. Time to spend long afternoons picking wild strawberries, saskatoons, blueberries and after a hike up to the abandoned mine on the mountainside, prized huckleberries.

There was time. In Hazelton we had two television stations…..on a good day. Letters and updates – contact with friends and family came by way of letters in Box 84, South Hazelton. If we were home to answer the phone we did and if we weren’t home the phone just rang and rang. There were no voicemail messages, no robo calls, no text messages. Term papers were typed on a manual typewriter. There were no ear buds keeping us plugged in and it was just the quiet; the sounds of the river, the birds and the occasional bear crashing through the woods in search of the same berries I was after.

Now my phone is in my pocket on my walks and listen to CNN on my bluetooth hearing aids as I walk . I snap pics of Jasmine just to text to Mark as he is at work. I watch television shows chosen from hundreds of channels and movies on demand. Work follows me home with laptops and cell phones and doesn’t end with an 8 hour day.

Today my heart hurts because someone I knew only from television and books took his life. We’ve become interconnected with strangers in intimate ways sharing dreams and sorrow in ways I never could have imagined all those years ago.

Today I am a bit scared at being called back for a second more intense MRI with all that can mean again in ways I never could have imagined all those years ago.

Today I feel frustration, helplessness and anger watching the shit-show the selfish, spoiled child running the USA is spreading around our world in ways I never could have imagined all those years ago.

I’m not saying it used to be a better place all those years ago, but there was time to pick wild strawberries.

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I love my cable news. Not the news station with the animal name; nope, the other one. Cable news when it’s not breaking and covering tragedies is a bit like a soap opera complete with the albeit orange-tinged patriarch with expressionless Botox beautiful women following dutifully along behind in red-soled stilettos. You get my drift.

I love my cable news so much that I listen to it on satellite radio on my short commute to work, but for heaven’s sake, what’s with the ads on satellite radio? There are proportionally more snoring ads – ads for snore stopping devices than anything else and in my short 35 minute commute I hear my share.

To be fair, there are also ads for hair loss, owing back taxes, luggage and hemorrhoidal treatment tucked in amongst the snoring ads. Yeah, I wonder what demographic study was done for effective advertising for the satellite radio-listening audience.

I for one do use luggage and have paid back taxes. I guess 2 outta 3 ain’t bad.

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Stuff in the news south of our border this week just makes me all snarky. All edgy waiting for it to be fixed. What the heck is wrong with people? When the proverbial foot is stuck in your mouth, back off and fix it. In other words, own up to the fact that sometimes your words come out wrong and hurt or anger others. Continue reading →

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Did you ever think you’d hear so much about the base? Cambridge Oxford says the base is “the bottom part of an object, on which it rests, or the lowest part of something” which certainly fits in with how the word and concept has been bandied about in Trumpland. Continue reading →

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Social media is such an intricate part of our lives that it’s hard to remember what we did with all the time we now spend checking status updates and posting whatever the flavour of the day is.

I maintain a presence on the professional network with groups and connections tied to the various aspects my professional life over the years and I was invited to connect with someone in the motivational speaking world. His profile was sparse, but looked ok; he had a picture of himself on a sailboat. We had no connections in common, but being anxious to expand the speaking aspect, I said ok. Immediately he responded by saying “I like your picture. Send more. Send lots.” (Insert heavy breathing here) Ah……. delete that connection immediately.

My social network presence is relatively small and private and I like it that way. Still, I get friend requests like I got from a guy I’d never heard of. No friends in common. I looked at his profile and the one post which was a picture of a nice looking guy. I looked at his friend list to see if we had anyone in common; as in how did he find me?

Mystery solved. Why, he was simply building up his list of Sues to go with his Margarets and Peggys. I guess he was now into Peggy Sues.

I declined. It wasn’t quite as creepy as the one I got from a guy collecting Susans. Yeah he had a long list of Susans. So weird…………

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How are we to measure “the complete” woman-ness of ourselves? I ask because over the years the ideals and metrics by which we measure ourselves have risen and in some standards lowered much like our ever-changing hemlines. I ask because over the years the role models and those we emulate change as well. And that can be a good thing.